Free HETAERA: Daughter of the Gods by J.A. Coffey Page A

with Aidne
completely out of my mind.
    The following week, the priests announced that
Mara, I, and several others would receive our first marks. It was a time of
celebration. The older girls gossiped amongst themselves, speculating on whose
would be the most intricate, whose would boast the finest shade of blue-black. As
for me, I delighted in the fact my brother would soon be born.
    At last the day came for my marking ceremony. Even
so, my mother was not allowed to set aside her chores to see me to the temple
artisan. I was led outside the mountain’s protection to a small hut near the
entrance to the temple. The frigid wind shocked the air from my lungs, and I
staggered against the priest who led me away. It felt strange to breathe in air
that did not reek of earth or humanity, to see the cold brittle sunlight of
winter and hear the plaintive cries of birds above me. My senses reeled from
the headiness of it all and from the excitement of being marked as the temple’s
own.
    The hut was very small and leaned against the
rocky mountainside, as a child will cleave to its mother. A very old man, an
aged priest most likely, beckoned us out of the wind and frost. The temple
guard sent me inside and announced he would return forthwith.
    “Come in, come in. Let me see.” The old man peered
at me with eyes that seemed much too rheumy to be of use. He bade me sit in a
high backed wooden chair.
    When I obeyed, he motioned for me to place my
palms on the rough wooden table.
    “Fine, fine….” He studied the skin on the backs of
my hands. “Well then, shall we begin? Don’t look so frightened, girl! It only
stings a little.”
    I armed my nerves with his words and thought to
make my mother proud. I was well on my way to becoming a Bacchae, to fulfilling
my destiny…I would return, serene and triumphant and display my marks with
pride. The priest lowered his instruments to my flesh. She would see I was
worthy, that I was…I was…in pain!
    The priest had lied !
    My hands were on fire. And as soon as he’d pierced
the back of one so often that I felt on the brink of fainting, he grabbed the
other and began the same. The scratch of his needles seemed to dig clear to the
bones of my hands. And oh, the blood that ran free beneath his fingers! He
wiped it often to see the lines etched beneath the bloody skin.
    Scratch, scratch. Wipe, wipe. The cloth abraded my
swollen flesh. And then, far worse, his fingers rubbed, smearing the blue-black
powder into my veins, only to repeat again, a fraction to the side of the
previous sore spot.
    Scratch, scratch. Wipe.
    “Steady, child,” the priest muttered, intent on
his designs.
    Oh, the long, drawn out pain of it!
    I fancied that I could see monsters howling and
the very pits of the Underworld opening up to expose my flesh-stripped fingers.
Tears pricked at my eyes like the needles in my flesh. My eyes rolled back in
my head, and I wanted to wipe my sweating upper lip on the folds of my robe. My
jaw ached from biting back screams of agony. And just when I felt darkness
crowding at the edges of my vision, the priest spoke again.
    “You are finished. Such a difficult pattern I have
not attempted for many years, but your skin was so pink and fine, I
thought…Gods, are you ill? No? Well, there’s a good girl. Off with you.”
    He patted my hands with a wet cloth, revealing a
lovely web of cobalt on my reddened swollen flesh. When I winced, he clucked
his tongue. He wrapped my hands gingerly in linens and told me to give them
time to heal.
    “They’ll give you herbs to take with your evening
wine. Be careful you don’t overdo them, or you won’t wake for a week’s time, if
you wake at all.”
    I stifled a sob and allowed him to lead me to the
door. If I’d thought the frigid winter air uncomfortable before, it was now
doubly so with sweat soaking my chiton. The chill was unbearable but the cold
made my hands ache less.
    I went to my chamber and drank the herbed wine
that was laid out